Checkmate
by Catching Rain
Summary: Ah, a friendly competition for the comfortable side of the couch... sh'yeah, right. If only.


**Disclaimer**: WAAAAAAH I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIIIIIIIS!!

**Author's Rant**: I think I'm just BARELY going to squeak by the deadline for TCGeek's contest... See, I was working on the contest while visiting my dad... but when we came home for just the weekend, I figured, "Ah, I'm only going to be gone for two days, I don't need to bring home my flash drive." So when we decided to stay for a week, I was marooned without my story. Or most of my clothes, for that matter... DX

This particular story was going to be a Leslie/Tyler fic, but since I needed a new contest fic, I pulled it from my reserves and put it to work. Dedicated to... whoever reviews first. ;D

ooo

**Checkmate**

Angie and Derek had just gotten off of their 16 hour shift at Caduceus. It hadn't been a particularly trying day, but the combination of severe lack of things to do with the "not-allowed-to-sit-down-unless-doing-paperwork-or-on-break" policy made pacing the only choice left. So, there it was, 16 hours of roaming from patient to patient, checking charts needlessly or just pacing in general. Although they got a half hour lunch break, the lumpy old couch in the break room didn't compare to the one in the apartment that they shared. As they pushed the door open, it quickly became a race of who could get the side of the couch with the fluffiest cushion. Of course, Derek lost.

The gymnastics Angie took in high school was an unfair advantage, he complained. Of course, that didn't convince her to forfeit the seat. She giggled as his face dropped.

"You're out of shape, Derek, or you would've beaten me to the seat," Angie teased.

"Sh'yeah, right! Tell that to these guns," Derek shot back playfully, flexing his muscles. It was true, in the four years she had known him, Angie had seen him go from "wimpy, tardy resident-who-still-acts-like-an-intern" to "super buff super surgeon."

"You're just jealous because you've never beat me to the couch."

"You're just jealous because I could kick your butt in chess." What the heck? Where did that come from? Still, Angie was never the type to back down from a challenge.

"You're on!"

"No, _you're _on!"

It took several minutes of this childish back-and-forth before Derek got up to go get the chess board (Angie still refused to lose her seat). He set up the pieces on the coffee table and pulled up a chair so that he could be directly across the board.

"Flame comes before the smoke, so white goes first," Derek egged. Angie knew this already, but she just smirked and moved her D pawn forward. Derek made a strange move and moved his G knight to F-6. The game continued for half an hour, with both of them capturing an equal amount of the other's pieces. It was at this stalemate that Angie decided to raise the stakes a little bit.

"How about we put a prize on the winner? Makes things a little bit more interesting," Angie suggested.

Derek smiled slyly. "Sure, why not? If I win, I get the good side of the couch for the rest of the year." That would be a victory on his part, since it was January.

Angie shrugged. "Fine by me. But if I win..." an evil grin inched across her face. "I get to do _whatever_ I want with you." Derek turned as red as a beet, but his couch was on the line!

"Fine by me!" He accepted adamantly.

Angie almost looked shocked. "Really!?"

"Really."

"Good. Checkmate!"

Derek blinked as he saw Angie move her piece. Her queen's side castle just took his bishop, leaving his king wide open. The only problem was that not only was he in a bad spot there, but if he moved to his left, her queen would take him, if he moved to the right, her bishop would take him. If he moved forward, her knight was standing by, and he had two pawns flanking him in the northwest and northeast. He had lost. His mouth hung wide open as he looked back and forth from the board to Angie's pleased face.

"A deal is a deal, Derek..."

Seemingly from nowhere, she pulled out a pair of scissors, an ominous twinkle on the blade that matched the ones in her eyes. It took Derek a minute to process what was in her hands, but after he did, his eyes went wide and his hands flew down to protect his "area."

"I've already been circumcised, thank you very much!" he spluttered before he could think. Angie reached over and slapped him on the head.

"You dummy! I want to cut your hair! You never mastered the art of the comb, so I want to make it better!"

If Derek's face was pale already, he would've looked like a ghost when the word 'cut' and 'hair' were in the same sentence. Before Angie even knew what hit her, Derek was bolting out the door, abusing his cell phone's speed dial feature.

"Hey! Come back here! I thought we had a deal!"

"We never shook on it!" Derek called over his shoulder. "And didn't your mom ever tell you that running with scissors is bad!?" He pushed the receiver to his ear just as Tyler picked up.

"Holla," Tyler answered, knowing full well he was going to be in trouble is Sidney caught him on his cell phone in a hospital.

"HOLYHELLTHANKDEARGODYOUPICKEDUP!!" Tyler jerked away from his phone, using his free hand to massage his now surely damaged eardrum.

"Dude, I _had_ perfect hearing! You didn't need to shout," Tyler hissed. Leslie, who had been standing right next to Tyler when his phone rang, was now thoroughly interested, and motioned for him to put it on speakerphone. Knowing Leslie's frightening temper, he did as he was told. "What's the crisis?"

"ANGIEISCHASINGMEALLOVERLOSANGELESWITHANEVERLOVINGPAIROFSCISSORS!!" If Derek's shouts weren't already loud enough when routed through the earpiece, they certainly were when they were magnified by the speakerphone. Tyler and Leslie blushed in embarrassment as the entire floor seemed to turn around and stare angrily at them. Tyler sheepishly turned it off of speakerphone and held it out so that ONLY he and Leslie could hear.

"Oh."

Victor, who had just happened to be walking down the hall with a particularly large box in his hands, just shook his head, almost smirking. "And they say _I_ have a terrible sex life," he muttered as he kept walking.

"What the hell did you do?" Tyler hesitated to ask.

"ILOSTAFREAKINGGAMEOFCHESS!"

"And that resulted in you being chased by your girlfriend with a pair of scissors... how, exactly?"

"Dr. Chase, what is the meaning of this?" Leslie and Tyler looked around to see Sidney standing there with his arms folded. "You know the hospital policy on cell phones, correct?"

"Sidney, this is an emergency!" Leslie protested. Seeing Sidney raise an eyebrow, she motioned him to stand closer so he could hear the dilemma, too.

"COME BACK HERE! YOU CAN'T RUN FOREVER!!" was Angie's determined cry from the background. The three could only imagine the stares they must have been getting out on the streets.

"Should we help them before they get arrested for being drunk and disorderly?" Tyler suggested.

"Unfortunately, _you_ have patients to watch, and this could end very interestingly. We'll find out if they were arrested or not when they don't come into work tomorrow," Sidney chuckled, not making any effort to move.

"GAH!" came Derek's cry. "SHE'SGETTINGCLOSER! HEEEEEELP!"

"AHA! I'VE GOT YOU NOW!"

There was a loud splash, then static, then nothing. Tyler, Leslie, and Sidney exchanged a nervous look and an awkward silence.

"Ohhh-kay, then," Sidney said, snatching Tyler's phone. "Now that _that_ crisis has been averted, you need to get back to work." He turned the phone off, then pressed it back into Tyler's hands.

A few hours later, when Tyler and Leslie were about to get off, a phone call came in on the hospital phone in the nurse's station. Leslie answered it.

"Caduceus USA, this is Nurse Sears speaking, how may I help you? ...Yes, this is her... What!? Oh... Okay... thank you."

Tyler gave her a quizzical look. "What was that all about?"

"Some angry wife at my apartment complex kicked her husband out, and started tossing his things out the window. I let my brother borrow my car today, and he parked it on the street when he was done, so... it's been totaled." She sighed. "I was going to have him come pick me up, too..."

"Need a lift home? It's not out of the way," Tyler offered.

"Could you? Oh, thank you, Tyler, you're a life saver! I hate riding the bus home, especially since Angie got licked that one time."

They headed out the front doors to go to the employee parking lot, when they saw two very familiar, very _wet_ people approaching them. Tyler burst out laughing and Leslie's eyes went wide as she covered her mouth in an attempt to stifle her giggles. Derek and Angie were in soaking wet scrubs, covered in seaweed, and Derek was carrying Angie on his back. Angie looked slightly embarrassed, while Derek looked positively miserable.

"You two went for a swim, I take it," Leslie stated, her voice quivering from held-in laughter.

"No kidding, Captain Obvious," Derek moaned. "I'm the one chased all over town and off the boardwalk, and I get stuck carrying my attacker all the way home... Oh, by the way, Angie owes me a new phone." He held out the short-circuited, also soaking wet lump of black mass that used to be his phone.

"Come on, now, Derek, you _do_ need a haircut," Angie grumbled. Leslie and Tyler exchanged glances. Tyler burst out laughing again and Leslie could hold hers no more.

"Tha... _That's _what this was all about? A ha-haircut?" Tyler stuttered in between his laughter. "That was the big crisis?"

Derek looked appalled. "Well, excuse me for being terrified if I'm being run down by a woman brandishing scissors!"

"I wouldn't have been chasing you if you hadn't run!"

"I wouldn't have run if you hadn't whipped out those things!"

"Well, you shouldn't have lost, then, huh?"

Leslie and Tyler just shook their heads and walked off toward Tyler's SUV in the parking lot. As they were pulling out, they could see the two still bickering, but now with a smile on their faces.

"Young love, eh?" Tyler commented.

Leslie looked over at her blonde friend. Now that Angie had mentioned it, Derek wasn't the only one in need of a haircut...

"Hey, Tyler?"

"Yeah?"

"Want to play a game of chess at my place?"

ooo

**A/N** So, there you have it. My rushed attempt to write comedy. I think it turned out okay, but there wasn't enough fluff in there, darn it all. Well, it was originally planned that Tyler/Leslie and Derek/Angie's roles were swapped, but, like I said before, I needed an idea to make up for my stupidity of leaving my original idea at my dad's place. I hope you enjoyed, because I had one hell of a time writing it!

Sorry it was so short, but please REVIEW!


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